James M. Barrie Quotes

I'll look as if I'm dead, and that won't be true.' I said nothing. 'You understand. It's too far. I can't take this body with me. It's too heavy.' I said nothing. 'But it'll be like an old abandoned shell. There's nothing sad about an old shell...' I said nothing. 'It'll be nice, you know. I'll be looking at the stars, too. All the stars will be wells with a rusty pulley. All the stars will pour out water for me to drink...' I said nothing. 'And it'll be fun! You'll have five-hundred million little bells; I'll have five-hundred million springs of fresh water...' And he, too, said nothing more.

A boy told me if he roller-skated fast enough his loneliness couldn't catch up to him, the best reason I ever heard for trying to be a champion. What I wonder tonight pedaling hard down King William Street is if it translates to bicycles. A victory! To leave your loneliness panting behind you on some street corner while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas, pink petals that have never felt loneliness, no matter how slowly they fell.

You can't separate the people from the places - although I sometimes like traveling in places where there are no people.

I longed from a tiny child to get away on my own. When I was five, I walked out along the sands from Redcar, nearly all the way to Hartlepool.

I don't travel much; I just stay at home and imagine weird places.

When I go train hopping and I look up into the sky, there are always so many more stars than I remember there were.

To be honest, Peter Pan was one of those fairy tales that I sort of related to, and I think that's the case with a lot of kids. The whole idea of escapism really resonates with a lot of kids.

My escape is to just get in a boat and disappear on the water.

Expeditions are escapism. The stuff that we're normally concerned about just doesn't matter out there. Tax returns, gas bill, none of it. Life becomes very simple, it's about moving in a certain direction - north if you're going north - staying warm and not getting eaten. That's it.

When I finally retire, I just want to go away so no one has to listen to me.

I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all.

I guess part of the hit-man appeal is the solitude. Everybody is lured to the idea of the solitary life.

To people of my generation, the picture show was really another dimension - sensual, whimsical. No uniforms or collective rites, but a place where little boys like me could laugh and feel free.

I always wanted to live alone for a month in a lakeside cabin. In my fantasy, I enter a state of perfect peace and grow my own kale and stuff, but in real life, I think I might be very bored after four days.

Even though I write about the human race, the further away from them, the better I feel. Two miles is great; two thousand miles is beautiful.

I felt like an outcast and turned to books, fantasy in particular, to find a place for myself. Reading took me away from this world, which I needed.

I love being on the road. I sit at home too long, and I start to go a bit stir crazy.

I'd love to go to a remote part of the world or maroon myself on a tropical island, and shoot the whole thing myself. I've always adventured with other people and I'd like to spend some time completely on my own.

I didn't have a lot of exposure to films as a kid, and I never went to the cinema. I had a single mom who just planted me in front of the television. But while growing up, I lived in my own fantasy world.

I could not forbear getting up to the top of a little mountain, and looking out to sea, in hopes of seeing a ship : then fancy that, at a vast distance, I spied a sail, please myself with the hopes of it, and, after looking steadily, till I was almost blind, lose it quite, and sit down and weep like a child, and thus increase my misery by my folly.

There are children who will leave a game to go and be bored in a corner of the garret. How often have I wished for the attic of my boredom when the complications of life made me lose the very germ of freedom!

You know what I'd really like to do the most right now? Climb up to the top of some high place like the pyramids. The highest place I can find. Where you can see forever. Stand on the very top, look all around the world, see all the scenery, and see with my own eyes what's been lost from the world.

When I was a child, I never played with other children. I hated them.

He is one of those who has had the wilderness for a pillow, and called a star his brother. Alone. But loneliness can be a communion.

Writing has always allowed me to escape. I was a very lonely child. Because I was very socially awkward, I would always have trouble making friends. And so reading and writing allowed me to have friends and to have an active imaginary life that really sort of kept me sane.